


can't stop tomorrow

by calmena



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canonical Character Death, Gen, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Pre-Slash, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2015-06-02
Packaged: 2018-04-02 11:05:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4057642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calmena/pseuds/calmena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So here he is, hoping he never gets his mark, because that would mean he's lost his soulmate, and life isn't one of those stupid romance novels where the words appear soon enough for someone to be able to change fate, because that'd make the whole thing useful. And really, it probably just exists to make people miserable, because life is unfair like that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	can't stop tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> So, I decided to write a Soulmate!AU where everyone's miserable, because apparently that's the kind of writer I am. I prompted myself with this a while ago on tumblr, but as it turns out I'm not always in the right mindset to write tragedies, so yeah, this took a while.

It's cruel, really, like a romance story gone wrong, turned into a fucking farce, and nobody even knows why it happens, so nobody can find a way to stop it, and probably about a quarter billion people on earth are fucking miserable.

And all that because of a few fucking words.

Of course, there's counselling and self-help groups and all kinds of semi-helpful shit that's supposed to make it easier for people to get over the fact that they lost their fucking soulmates – not that anything ever really helps, if his mum is any indication.

Eggsy doesn't know when her words appeared, exactly – never asked, because his mum still cries sometimes when she looks in the mirror and sees _I love you, I'll be back soon_ written along her collarbone, flinches back from pitying glances, hides the mark, to the point where she wears scarves more often that not, even in summer – but he remembers that his mum started crying a lot, and then a few days later a bloke in a suit appeared and told them his dad wasn't coming back.

So here he is, hoping he never gets his mark, because that would mean he's lost his soulmate, and life isn't one of those stupid fucking romance novels where the words appear soon enough for someone to be able to change fucking _fate_ , because that'd make the whole thing useful. And really, it probably just exists to make people miserable, because life is unfair like that.

* * *

There are people who don't ever meet their soulmates, of course, who are happy with whoever they are with, anyway. And people who actually do meet their soulmate, but who die before them, who never have to know that they heard the last words of the person they were _meant for_.

Eggsy thinks he'd rather not ever know if the person he's with is his soulmate, if that means he won't have to know he's lost them.

* * *

Dean is a fucking bastard, and Eggsy hates him. He's pretty sure his mum does, too, and that the only person she hates even more is herself, because for some reason she thinks that losing her soulmate is her fault.

Like the calls she made when the words burned themselves into her skin weren't enough. Like she wasn't fast enough, persistent enough, _good enough_.

It's because of the fucking mark, Eggsy thinks, it's that she knew and couldn't do anything about it.

* * *

He's almost sure he's going to end up in prison, away from where he can look out for his mum and Daisy, when a bloke in a suit saves him. (Harry Hart, he tells Eggsy.) 

Eggsy feels like he remembers him, and when, later, he is told that Harry worked with his father, he really does remember. He almost wants to ask if words appeared on his dad's skin after he left his mum, but he doesn't, because he knows there wouldn't have been any. Only ever the person who's left behind knows that who they lost was their soulmate.

Eggsy thinks that if there was such a thing as fate, it would be laughing at humanity.

* * *

Harry offers him a job after he scares Dean into letting Eggsy go, and Eggsy accepts, because there's nothing else for him out there, really.

He meets a lot of idiots and Roxy and Amelia. They write their names on body-bags and Eggsy thinks that he's glad he's pretty sure he hasn't met his soulmate, because that means if this all goes down and he dies, nobody will have to read his last words to them on their skin.

* * *

Of course then everything goes wrong anyway, because Harry turns out to be great, the few times they get to talk (because training is fucking exhausting, and most of the time Eggsy is exhausted enough to fall on his bed and fall asleep right away, and Harry's out on missions a lot, so it's not like they get a lot of opportunities to talk), and then he's in a coma because something exploded right in front of his face.

At least that's what Merlin tells him, is _all_ he tells him, because Eggsy's not a Kingsman yet, and also he's pretty sure Merlin doesn't exactly know much more, himself.

So Eggsy visits Harry a lot, tells him about the tests and the exhausting training and about everything he learns, even if Harry can't talk back.

And then Harry wakes up, and Eggsy finds out that what exploded in front of him was a fucking head, ugh.

* * *

Harry shows him how to drink a martini, and Eggsy-- yeah, he's not gonna lie, he's having fun. He forgets that his final test is on the next day, and just enjoys his time with Harry, because really, he's become quite fond of Harry since he picked him up at the police station.

"You're not holding the glass correctly," Harry says, shaking his head, but there's a smile hovering at the edges of his lips and Eggsy has to smother the smirk that wants to slip out and grips the glass as if it's a mug.

"Better?"

Harry huffs, but there's an air of reluctant amusement around him, like he knows that Eggsy's just teasing. He's not calling him on it, though, instead moving closer, close enough that Eggsy feels the warmth of his body all along his side, when Harry reaches out to adjust his grip on the glass.

"Much better," he says, but doesn't move away, and Eggsy just leans a little further into him.

* * *

He doesn't shoot JB. He's angry at himself about it, too, and angry at Arthur for wanting him to do it, and even at Harry for telling him about Kingsman in the first place, for making him think he could do something real, something _good_ with his life.

Then he thinks about what it means, that he failed _Harry_ , and it feels like his heart drops down, down, down.

Harry is angry about it too, or maybe about the stolen car, and Eggsy's not sure how he managed to fuck everything up so thoroughly in just a few hours. Just this morning everything had been great, breakfast with Harry, something he wishes they could do again (every day, he think, every day would be great), but doubts will reoccur.

Harry probably won't talk to him ever again, after this. The thought hurts so much, Eggsy is relieved when Harry tells him he'll fix everything when he comes back, when he doesn't say that he wants Eggsy to leave and to never come back.

There's still anger and – even worse – _disappointment_ in Harry's words, but at least he's not giving up on Eggsy, and really, that's all he wants right then.

"Thanks, Harry," he says, after Harry's left, and he means it, even if Harry can't hear. He's just so glad he'll get another chance to make everything right with Harry, even if he has to wait until he comes back. Which he can't even ask Merlin about now, because he doesn't have the right, since he's not a Kingsman anymore, and anyway, _how_?

So he gets Harry's laptop, opens up the feed from the glasses Harry wears, and watches. Takes a nap. Watches some more, and sees Harry walk into a church.

And suddenly his right hand burns, like someone is pressing a hot poker to it, and Eggsy breathes in sharply and it sounds like a sob. He looks only for a moment, sees the barest shadow of words, before he scrambles for Kingsman glasses, for a phone, for _anything_.

Not that it helps, because he doesn't reach anyone, doesn't even get through, like someone cut the fucking phone lines or something, as if that's still a thing, no way to reach Merlin and fucking warn him, warn _Harry_.

He watches Harry kill half the people in the church while the rest kill each other and for a moment, a sickening, awful, _relieved_ moment, he thinks that Harry will be okay, that Harry can get out of that alive, no matter what horrible thing is going on in that building, that he'll come back--

And then he sees Valentine, he sees the gun, the _bullet_ \--

He hears a long, high whine, and he only notices it's him making the noise when he brings up his burning hand to his mouth in shock. He can't look at the words he knows appeared, for a moment, he can't do anything at all.

Then he gets up, because Harry is dead and even if he kind of wants to let the world burn, because he can't have Harry back, he can't do that, because it's Valentine's fault.

And Valentine's going to pay.

* * *

When Eggsy comes back, Valentine dead and world saved, Harry is still not there, and he doesn't know what he expected, but apparently it didn't happen, because he just feels _empty_.

And Eggsy suddenly gets why his mum can't look at the words on her skin without breaking down, even now, even years later. Because he looks at his words, written along one side of his forefinger, almost down to the place where it meets his thumb, words written in tidy cursive.

It's a fucking awful place for it, too, because he'll have to wear gloves if he doesn't want to see it, and it reminds him of his shortcomings during the final test every time he looks at it, of the fact that it's his fault that these where the last words his soulmate said to him, maybe even that this happened, because Harry was so angry, wasn't thinking straight--

_I'll sort this mess out, when I get back._

'Yeah', Eggsy thinks, curling his hand into a fist and watching the words crinkle and become a little harder to decipher, but still stay _legible_. 'This is going to suck.'

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Broken by Lifehouse.
> 
> I know people don't like sad things, so I hope anyone even reads this. ;) Also, I promise I'm working on a funny-smutty 5+1 things fic that I hope to get finished sometime soon.
> 
> If you're interested in a rambly behind-the-scenes sort of post, there's one here [my tumblr](http://www.mystatusquo.tumblr.com/tagged/statusquo's%20sad!soulmate%20au).


End file.
